One significant benefit of membership in PANNY is the privilege of joining and participating onour listserv. Typically, the listserv has postings that contain questions for the group,announcements of relevant opportunities, recent press about psychological issues, and requestsfor referrals.

Many messages are sent and received on the list each year, most of which are informative, helpful,worded politely, and clearly relevant to PANNY’s focus on advancing psychology as a science, as aprofession, and as a means of promoting the welfare of the people of Northeastern New York.

PANNY Listserv Guidelines

1. The purpose of the PANNY listserv is to facilitate communication among all members on topics related to psychological research, education, training, practice, and advocacy. Messages sent to the listserv should reflect this community objective.
2. The PANNY listserv should be used in a manner that is consistent with the rules that NYSPA and APA has established for all of the listservs that they support. (see http://listserve.apa.org/infopages/APARules.html)
3. Listserv Management will be directed by the PANNY Board which will contact individuals who do not use the listserv in a manner that is professional and respectful of list members (see below).
4. Names of patients or other confidential information should not ever be included in postings on these lists. In addition, list members must use their real names, sign all postings, and indicate when they have a financial interest in any product under discussion.
5. Distribution of copyright protected information (e.g., PDFs of journal articles, test forms, other intellectual property, etc.) is prohibited. Violation of this policy may result in suspension of privileges on the lists.

Defining Unprofessional Behavior:

Unprofessional behavior is defined as any behavior that may be construed as being unsupportive of ordisrespectful to listserv members or creating a hostile environment. Examples of unsupportive ordisrespectful behavior or behavior that contributes to the creation of a hostile environment include,but are not limited to: hostile or sarcastic responses to a list member’s posting; negative remarksabout a list member’s character or motives; repetitive postings; postings that contain statements thatdistort or misrepresent an event; postings that clearly address a relational issue with a specific listmember; postings that are not obviously relevant to the purpose of the listserv.

Constructive criticism and dissenting positions are not considered “unprofessional behavior.”Comments that express a negative evaluation but which do not explicitly offer alternative resourcesor a helpful course of action or do not ask for engagement are considered unsupportive ordisrespectful. Some examples are cited below. These examples are not all-inclusive.

• Unprofessional: “Obviously someone hasn’t been keeping up with the field.”
  vs.
  Professional: “What about the latest findings from X – might those be something that you might explore? I’d be very much interested in hearing your thoughts about those findings.”
• Unprofessional: "Taking this approach is deceitful and misleading."
  vs.
  Professional: "I disagree with this approach. In my opinion, our clients (or members) would be best served by going about it this way [step 1, step 2, and step 3]."
• Unprofessional: “Those in leadership are just trying to hide things from the membership.”
  vs.
  Professional: “I don’t recall seeing this information anywhere. Can someone tell me where I might be able to access this information, or when it might become available to the membership?”

Consequences of Unprofessional Behavior

To assure that subscription to the listserv is a positive experience, violators of the listserv guidelines will be subject to the following sanctions, listed in order of increasing severity:

1. Listmember will be sent a reminder message about the listserv’s purpose, community standards, and guidelines.
2. Should another violation occur, subsequent to the warning, a listmember will be suspended from using the listserv.
3. Conditions of reinstatement to the listserv will be at the discretion of the PANNY Board.

We intend to keep the PANNY listserv unmoderated. All members can post messages directly to the list. Infractions of the listserv rules, therefore, will be addressed only after the fact.

Currently, Listserv Moderation is not a viable option for PANNY as 1)subscribers may take offense and threaten legal action, 2) if a list is moderated, then the moderator might approve an allegedly libelous statement,resulting in legal risks and/or significant annoyance to the moderator and 3) it is unfair to ask a volunteer, such as a listserv moderator, to take on this added level ofresponsibility and risk.

Thank you for your cooperation in adhering to these principles that will help us maintain a supportiveprofessional community.